Dickens’ tale circa 1135 and other massive errors. Google Book Search’s mistakes provoke questions …
TimesHiger Ed. http://tinyurl.com/lm3kxl
“Professor Nunberg was even more outspoken in a blog posted on 29 August. With Google likely to become “the universal library for a long time to come”, scholars need good metadata. Unfortunately, Google’s information is “a train wreck: a mish-mash wrapped in a muddle wrapped in a mess”. “
The VLE is Dead: the movie http://bit.ly/zvGs8. (RT @josiefraser)
Above link is for the recording made of the VLE is Dead Symposium at ALT-C 2009: http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/talks/show/6776
#altc2009
See also blogs:
http://www.pontydysgu.org/2009/08/the-vle-is-dead/comment-page-1/
http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2009/06/another-nail-in-coffin.html
online ed continues to grow faster than brick-&-mortar, 2009’s economic woes accelerate the pattern http://bit.ly/9CYnO
“In its annual report on the state of online education, the Sloan Consortium reported in 2008 that online education continues to grow at a much faster rate than its brick-and-mortar competitors. Anecdotal evidence suggests that 2009’s economic woes will only accelerate the pattern”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/31/CMLM18L4MG.DTL#ixzz0N98M8aPk
Brian Kelly from UKLON
Use of Web 2.0 technologies & approaches:
“This document offers guidance to staff within the University on some of the issues
which need to be considered before using such services for University purposes. The
document is intended to be helpful for all staff, including researchers, teaching staff
and support staff. Note, however, that it focuses on issues specific to using external
Web 2.0 services – issues which are common to Web 2.0 services regardless of
whether they are internally or externally hosted are not specifically addressed.”
Funded by the JISC Learning and Teaching Committee through the Innovation group’s e-Learning Programme, JISC infoNet, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and the Higher Education Academy were presented with the challenge of trying to make some kind of sense of the diversity of current e-learning practice across the HE sector and to seek out evidence that technology-enhanced learning is delivering tangible benefits for learners, teachers and institutions.
The result is, we believe, a celebration of the diversity in the sector and shows the effectiveness of a range of approaches. Most importantly it shows that it is possible to address the thorny question of defining tangible benefits. The set of 37 detailed online case studies available here are supported by an accompanying publication and a briefing paper. We hope these will serve to inform, to inspire, to stimulate debate and to encourage others to participate in this form of knowledge exchange.
Taken from http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/case-studies/tangible, see this page for more & reports
Report entitled The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age, co-authored by Cathy Davidson and David Theo Goldberg, with assistance from Zoe Marie Jones, from MIT Press:
To view the report online: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/Future_of_Learning.pdf
Following description from blog http://www.hastac.org/node/2238
Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg in an abridged version of their book-in-progress, The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age, argue that traditional institutions must adapt or risk a growing mismatch between how they teach and how this new generation learns. Forms and models of learning have evolved quickly and in fundamentally new directions. Yet how we teach, where we teach, who teaches, and who administers and serves have changed only around the edges. This report was made possible by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in connection with its grant making initiative on Digital Media and Learning
Key Findings
Young people today are learning in new ways that are both collective and egalitarian.
They are contributing to Wikipedia, commenting on blogs, teaching themselves programming and figuring out work-arounds to online video games. They follow links embedded in articles to build a deeper understanding. They comment on papers and ideas in an interactive and immediate exchange ofideas. All these acts are collaborative and democratic, and all occur amid a worldwide community of voices.
Universities must recognize this new way of learning and adapt or risk becoming obsolete.
The university model of teaching and learning relies on a hierarchy of expertise, disciplinary divides, restricted admission to those considered worthy, and a focused, solitary area of expertise. However, with participatory learning and digital media, these conventional modes of authority break down.
Today’s learning is interactive and without walls.
Individuals learn anywhere, anytime, and with greater ease than ever before. Learning today blurs lines of expertise and tears down barriers to admission. While it has never been confined solely to the academy, today’s opportunities for independent learning have never been easier nor more diverse.
Ten Principles for Redesigning Learning Institutions
The authors offer ten principles that can guide universities and other institutions of learning in adapting to learning in a digital age. They focus on college-aged students, although the recommendations also apply generally for all age groups. Self-learning: Today’s learners are self-learners. They browse, scan, follow links in mid-paragraph to related material. They look up information and follow new threads. They create their own paths to understanding.
Horizontal structures: Rather than top-down teaching and standardized curriculum, today’s learning is collaborative; learners multitask and work out solutions together on projects. Learning strategy shifts from a focus on information as such to learning to judge reliable information. It shifts from memorizing information to finding reliable sources. In short, it shifts from learning that to learning how.
From presumed authority to collective credibility: Reliance on the knowledge authorities or certified experts is no longer tenable amid the growing complexities of collaborative and interdisciplinary learning. A key challenge in collaborative environments will be fostering and managing levels of trust.
A de-centered pedagogy: To ban or limit collective knowledge sources such as Wikipedia in classrooms is to miss the importance of collaborative knowledge-making. Learning institutions should instead adopt a more inductive, collective pedagogy based on collective checking, inquisitive skepticism, and group assessment.
Networked learning: Learning has traditionally often assumed a winner-take-all competitive form rather than a cooperative form. One cooperates in a classroom only if it maximizes narrow self-interest. Networked learning, in contrast, is committed to a vision of the social that stresses cooperation, interactivity, mutual benefit, and social engagement. The power of ten working interactively will invariably outstrip the power of one looking to beat out the other nine.
Open source education: Traditional learning environments convey knowledge via overwhelmingly copyright-protected publications. Networked learning, contrastingly, is an “open source” culture that seeks to share openly and freely in both creating and distributing knowledge and products.
Learning as connectivity and interactivity: Challenges in a networked learning environment are not an individual’s alone. Digital tools and software make working in isolation on a project unnecessary. Networking through file-sharing, data sharing, and seamless, instant communication is now possible.
Lifelong learning: The speed of change in this digital world requires individuals to learn anew, face novel conditions, and adapt at a record pace. Learning never ends. How we know has changed radically.
Learning institutions as mobilizing networks: Rather than thinking of learning institutions as a bundle of rules, regulations, and norms governing the actions within its structure, new institutions must begin to think of themselves as mobilizing networks. These institutions mobilize flexibility, interactivity, and outcomes. Issues of consideration in these institutions are ones of reliability and predictability alongside flexibility and innovation.
Flexible scalability and simulation: Learning institutions must be open to changing scale. Students may work in small groups on a specific topic or together in an open-ended and open-sourced contribution.These ten principles, the authors argue, are the first steps in redesigning learning institutions to fit the new digital world. By assessing some of the institutional barriers to change, the authors hope to mobilize institutions to envision formal, higher education as part of a continuum of the networked world that students engage in online today.
via @klamma
see blog bu George Siemens http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2009/06/27/the-future-of-learning-institutions-in-a-digital-age/
Join the communication wave! See good article on future of browser based communication by John Naughton - ‘Google: waving not drowning’ — http://bit.ly/2lu9jD
You have to login to Facebook to see this (and ask to join) but this is relevant.
Tensions between Innovation and Control
This group has been created for those interested in viewing, criticising and contributing to the “Policy Tool” created by Mark Stiles to allow people to consider the policy issues arising from the control and ownership of different processes and technologies used in technology supported learning
If you are a member of Facebook follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=739730049&ref=profile#/group.php?gid=6572643972&ref=ts
John Cook
